EDMONTON—The Ducks are falling the wrong way in the standings and losing to the worst team in the league doesn’t help efforts to close the season on top. The Ducks allowed three unanswered goals in the second period and failed to gain back the margin losing 4-2 at
Rexall Place on Sunday night.

With a single point splitting
San Jose and
Anaheim for the Pacific Division lead, a fight for first place would go all the way down with five games left in the season. There best chance to gain ground was against the Oilers who are in no position for playoff contention, but had the role of party crasher on their side. The Ducks avoided a margin against them with Andrew Cogliano sending a drive 80 seconds into the game where the puck deflected off the stick of Jakob Silfverberg to give him nine goals this season. It was the first shot the Ducks took on the night and having former goaltender Viktor Fasth in the opposing net, gave the Ducks a reason to fire all they could.
Anaheim took nine shots over the Oilers seven showing the same offense that has dominated them in the past, but the game was still too early to call.

Instead of struggling to outshoot the Ducks,
Edmonton came out and threw the fights at them. Right-winger Steven Pinizzotto and Ducks left-winger Matt Beleskey, through off the gloves and fought it out to end up in the box. It gave the
Edmonton bench a reason to fight on in more ways and paid off with dividends. On the power play,
Edmonton’s Taylor Hall scored his 27th with a short wrist shot that went through Jonas Hiller to take the lead. The moment upset the Ducks as Patrick Marooon chose to fight with Matt Hendricks to counter the weight the Oilers had.

Taylor Hall fist pumps teammates on the bench in huge upset over the Ducks

It didn’t help as the Oilers scored a short hander after concluding a four on four situation where David Perron put the puck up behind Hiller for his 27th as well. The fights wouldn’t be settled without a third chance for Anaheim to take over the game getting the punches to land right where Maroon and Mark Fraser went at each other only to result in Edmonton gaining the upper hand. The third time was the charm for the Oilers as Justin Schultz scored his 11th and second straight goal on a backhander that went through a small window of opportunity sliding between the post and Hiller’s stick to go up two goals on the Ducks.

The third was
Anaheim’s final chance to make a statement of power as they came right off the faceoff during a roll over power play where Ryan Getzlaf sent a blue line drive that hit the stick of Corey Perry to give him his 42nd of the season and cut the margin down to a goal. The Ducks took a dozen shots through the period fighting around the
Edmonton defense to force a possible overtime. Time began to work against
Anaheim as they chose to pull Hiller for a sixth man spanning 2:15 all the way to the horn. The extra man challenged Fasth and the Oilers in their zone, but couldn’t find the back of the net.

A last chance for the Oilers to put the game out of reach came with 14 ticks on the clock, where Jordan Eberle slid the puck from center ice and into the empty net making him the third player to reach 27 goals in a single game. The disappointment hit the Ducks who wished to sit some of their players in order to gain rest before playoffs, but the margin was too close to call with the Sharks close behind. They have a chance to gain ground as they meet
Vancouver on Monday before facing the Sharks in a game where two points could switch the role of leader in the West.